Beneath Freda’s animation and apparent flippancy, reposed a silent and very solemn tribunal before which everything of importance had to be arraigned. Themes of elemental justice, of human motives, and of the obscured relation of cause and effect—these she dwelt upon. Few people knew what a sage she was, in secret. Few were permitted to see past her bright face.
At Merlton, no university student, caring so little for the customary rewards of education, had received as much interest from the teachers. Most of the professors had a tender spot in their hearts for her. This may have depended, in no little measure, upon her personal beauty, for decades of mental acquisition do not alter a man’s response, and a good-looking woman maintains her authority even in the sedate courts of learning. Then, too, a realist who has smashed her way through the brambles wins a sharp simplicity that is bound to attract all enemies of delusion. Professor Freeman pendulated between admiration of her mental courage and curiosity about her flippancy. François de Freville gloried in his “Oiseau,” without stint. Alfred K. Tanner loved her, but the great-hearted gentleman loved nearly everybody, so that it was never noticeable. Nutbrown Hennigar had started with the emotionless, but level-headed idea that Freda was sufficiently ornamental to grace his distinguished presence on most social occasions and had arrived at a point where he believed that she should be a permanent ornament in his home. All these people composed the fringe of her existence. She took none of them seriously, but derived a paltry pleasure from the flattery to her vanity.
A little nearer was Maxwell Lee—so much like her in many ways, a good chum, clever, sincere and respected. But he did not awake any amorous response in Freda.
Thus she had continued to play with life, superficially gay, but actually discontented. The only man who had ever believed in her was Mauney Bard. He saw beneath the surface. This, at least, was how she felt on the day following his ardent declarations.
Another college term was finished. Spring and the vacation were at hand. But she knew no eagerness, as in other years, to be off to her home in Lockwood. The morning was occupied in arranging her secretarial desk for the summer’s absence and the afternoon in quiet day-dreams in her room on Franklin Street.
Her opened window, beside which she lounged in her big Morris chair, let in a heterogeneous clatter of carts and horses’ hoofs, the constant, shrill voices of romping children and the distant melodies of an organ-grinder from a neighboring block, the brisk movements of the Rigoletto, and the long, rolling chords of the Aloha. It was a very satisfactory occupation to sit passively by her window. Beyond and beneath the noise and the music there was a sweet silence of new happiness within her. And her eyes were not seeing the familiar objects of the room, but feasting upon the fresh, open face of Mauney Bard. Out of the air, his clear blue eyes looked into hers. She heard his voice laughing. She saw his eyes, boyish and eager, light with their happy laughter.
After a time she glanced toward her wardrobe and rose impulsively to dress for dinner. While she was finishing the ceremony of donning a new evening dress of rose silk the door opened quietly to admit Gertrude who, after a glance at her bowed smilingly.
“Ah-ha!” she said, very softly, “Doing it a la grande, are you?”
“Gertrude,” said Freda, “see if you can get this fastened, will you?”
“I shall be pleased, my dear,” responded the landlady, coming close, “to help you with so charming a frock. Why a dome-fastener should be placed in such an inaccessible position puzzles me considerably. Don’t you want your hair waved a little?”